AUSTIN (KXAN) — Thousands of people convicted of non-violent, low-level federal crimes — then released during the COVID-19 pandemic — will not have to go back to prison following a recent decision by the Department of Justice that puts an end to lingering uncertainty.

“It really hasn’t sunk in yet,” Kendrick Fulton said. Fulton was sentenced to 33 years for selling cocaine.

This is Fulton’s 20th year in federal custody. KXAN first met him two years ago after he was released to home confinement in Round Rock. The arrangement was part of the CARES Act to help slow the spread of COVID-19 in prisons.

In 2021, KXAN asked Fulton what he would say to people who felt he shouldn’t have been released from prison and should have to serve his time behind bars.

“You know, for the people that say, ‘You do the crime, you do the time.’ I’ve done 17 years,” he said.

Now, a judge has reduced his sentence to 25 years. With credit for time served and good behavior, Fulton — who now lives in Arlington and works full-time as a truck driver — said he will be free at the end of the year.

His case was given another look due to the First Step Act of 2018. It allows the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, which reduces cocaine sentences, to apply retroactively.

‘A wild success’

Once his ankle monitor is removed, he will be free to travel without permission. Right now, he is limited to 150 miles, he said, which prevents him from taking long-haul trucking jobs that might pay more money. Only then, will his new freedom “set in,” he said.

“I can go to Walmart at 10 o’clock at night [after the ankle monitor is removed]. I don’t have to have a pass to go to the grocery store. I don’t have to have a pass to go to certain places — to church — I can just go to church when I want to go to church,” Fulton said.

“Sky’s the limit,” he said. “I can actually get my own truck, you know, so I’m just excited. It’s been a long time … I’m excited about great, big things to come.”

A total of 13,316 federal inmates were released to home confinement nationwide under the CARES Act between March 2020 and June 2023, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. An estimated 1,920 are from, or currently live in, Texas.

A small fraction of released inmates, 521, were re-arrested and returned to prison for unspecified violations or new crimes, according to the data.

That is a sign the experiment worked, according to Families Against Mandatory Minimums, a non-profit advocating for sentencing reform and clemency for those released.

“Overwhelmingly, they’ve done just fine. Crime didn’t go up. There was no crime wave. We have the lowest recidivism rate I’ve ever seen in my life — in my entire career of working on criminal justice reform,” FAMM Vice President of Policy Molly Gill said. “The CARES Act home confinement program is a wild success and it should be made permanent.”

What hasn’t been permanent was a plan for those released once the pandemic ended.

‘Terrible policy’

In early 2021, the Department of Justice issued a legal memo that said the Bureau of Prisons would be “required to recall” those affected to finish serving their sentences behind bars. By the end of that year, the DOJ reversed and said the BOP would have “discretion” to keep this group on home confinement after US Attorney General Merrick Garland said it would be “terrible policy” to recall everyone “after they have shown that they are able to live in home confinement without violations.”

In April, President Joe Biden signed a resolution ending the national emergency response to the pandemic. That same month, the DOJ issued its final ruling allowing those released under the CARES Act “to remain in home confinement” for the rest of their sentence as long as they’re “compliant with all conditions of supervision.”

For Fulton, who just turned 50 and watched his daughter graduate college, it’s another welcomed milestone.

“Oh man, I learned a lot from being in prison, going to prison at 29 years old, still dealing with the same issues at 50 now,” Fulton said. “I like to encourage the young people and tell them, ‘Hey, listen, trouble is easy to get in and it’s hard to get out of.'”

More than three months after the pandemic was declared over, the fact that the BOP hasn’t recalled anyone yet “is lending a lot of comfort to people,” Gill said.

“We’ve been vetted. We’ve been screened. We’ve proven that we can be out here — that we can succeed,” Fulton said.

“Through adversity… what you go through, or what happens in your life, [it] don’t have to define you,” he said. “You can always get better by a situation.”